December 5: A Good Son, Daughter's Fifteenth Birthday, Peter Thabit Jones, "Birthday Walk," Confessions of Saint Marty

He prayed for a good son, and when he was born named him Robert, after his adoptive father.

Ives lives for his family.  Nothing is more important to him.  His wife, Annie.  His son and daughter, Robert and Caroline.  They give his life meaning and joy.  His favorite times are going on walks with his kids, holding their hands at busy intersections.  Jumping in the car and taking day trips to upstate New York, sight-seeing and dreaming of homes with gabled roofs and gardens.  Ives starts planning for his happily-ever-after the day his son is born.

Today is my daughter's fifteenth birthday.  A decade and a half ago, at 7:29 a.m., she came screaming into this world, pink as a summer sunrise.  Up to that moment, I wasn't sure about being a father.  I thought of myself as a basically selfish person, unwilling to give up my late evenings with friends, movies every weekend, short and long trips with my wife.  No strings tying me down.

And then I held my daughter for the first time, and I felt my heart cracking open like the San Andreas Fault.  I had no idea that my life had been missing something.  She was beautiful, smiling and calm, for the most part.  I didn't mind changing her diapers.  At bath time, we would sing songs and splash each other.  Halloween was candier.  Christmas was brighter.  The world was, somehow, larger and smaller at the same time.

So, today, I celebrate my daughter.  Fifteen years young.  Dancer.  Flutist.  Singer.  Gamer.  Sulker.  Eye-roller.  Early Christmas present.  My wife will be battling the bell ringers and Christmas crowds this afternoon to finish our birthday shopping.  Tomorrow afternoon, we will have cake and ice cream after church.

Now, if Saint Marty could just get her to make her bed...

Birthday Walk

by:  Peter Thabit Jones

Walking the dazzling rim
Of the Pacific,
The Grecian-blue sea
And mythological rocks,
I feel the mortal
And sense the eternal.

I am a child
At the window of wonder,
A man spellbound
By a living prayer.

To begin
To imagine
Just one breath of God
Is to attempt
To place a tiger
On the back of an ant.

I stand and I watch
The ocean
Making love
To the humbled bay.

Confessions of Saint Marty

September 26: A Good Son, Seventh Birthday, Tomas Transtromer, "Memories Watch Me," Confessions of Saint Marty

He's prayed for a good son, and when he was born named him Robert, after his adoptive father.

Ives was left on the steps of a foundling home in New York City when he was an infant.  For the first few years of his life, he was raised by nuns.  Then a widower named Robert Ives showed up one day, close to Christmas, and decided to adopt him.  When Ives becomes a father, he makes it his mission to give his children a close, caring, loving family.  The birth of his son is one of the happiest days of Ives' life.

Today is my son's seventh birthday.  Of course, I'm going to say the thing that all parents say:  I can't believe it's been seven years since he was born.  Time really does have a way of slipping by like water in a mountain stream.  Beautiful and fast.

My son is funny and smart and healthy, although he could eat more vegetables and fruits.  This morning, I knelt down in front of him and sang "Happy Birthday" to him.  He bobbed his head along as I sang, and, when I was done, he leaned over, kissed me, put his arms around my neck, and whispered "I love you" in my ear.  It made my heart absolutely dissolve.

Yes, I am being sentimental.  I think I'm allowed that today.  Two of the best days of my life were when my daughter and son were born.  I remember, on both occasions, feeling as though scales had been peeled away from my eyes.  Kids have a way of making the world seem freshly made.  As if, stepping outside, I may find Adam on my lawn, trying to come up with a name for a bird roosting in one of my trees.

That's Saint Marty today.  Thinking back.  Giving thanks.  Letting his son reinvent life day by day.

A little poem about reflection...

Memories Watch Me

by:  Tomas Transtromer

A morning in June when it's too early yet
to wake, and still too late to go back to sleep.

I must go out through greenery that's crammed
with memories, that follow me with their eyes.

They are not visible, wholly dissolve
into background, perfect chameleons.

They are so close that I can hear them breathe
although the singing of birds is deafening.

Confessions of Saint Marty